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SA health minister urged to quit

A keynote speaker from South Africa at the International Aids Conference in Toronto, Canada, has called on South Africa’s health minister to resign.

Mark Heywood, head of the Aids Law Project in South Africa, said Manto Tshabalala-Msimang had minimised the role of anti-retroviral drugs.

“A minister tells people about garlic and lemons, but doesn’t tell people about anti-retroviral medicines,” Mr Heywood told delegates - a reference to certain foodstuffs that the South African government has promoted as being useful for Aids patients.

“People who follow her advice in late-stage HIV infection and take garlic and lemons will die,” Mr Heywood continued.

“People who take anti-retrovirals in late-stage HIV infection will return to health.”

Lemons and garlic were among the items displayed alongside anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) and condoms at South Africa’s exhibition at the International Aids Conference in Toronto.

In fairness to the Minister, I hope Mr Heywood qualified his statement,”People who follow her advice in late-stage HIV infection and take garlic and lemons will die,”. Did he say that people who replaced the prescribed drug regime with lemon and garlic at the late stages of HIV infection would die?

See full story here and here at BBC.CO.UK